That’s a mouthful and it was a delicious mouthful. I threw this together after my workout. Don’t roll your eyes. All I knew, was that I wanted to use up my last zucchini and wasn’t sure if I wanted to spiralize again. I decided to try out my new mandolin (a potato peeler would work too) and slice the zucchini for lasagna. It was all about using what I had on hand 🙂
The other thing I love about this type of dish *raw food purists, hands over ears – is that you could buy store bought pesto, tapenade, hummus or any other kind of dippy thing you love and place it between zucchini layers. It would rock! Like I’m thinking guacamole or taco dip type stuff. If you do buy store bought ‘packaged’ at least try to find the one with the least ingredients or most ‘whole food’ type ingredients. I hope this gives you great ideas and inspirations.
Arugula Pesto and Sun-dried Tomato Tapenade Raw Lasagna
Makes 1 serving out of 1 normal/small zucchini BUT the pesto made enough for additional servings (like 1/2 cup leftover total), so maybe 3-5 more servings. The sun-dried tapenade made about enough for 2 servings total (so double as needed).
Ingredients
- 1 zucchini, ends removed
- 1/2 cup walnuts
- 4-6 garlic cloves, rough chopped
- salt to taste
- 2-4 cups baby arugula
- 1-3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (taste as you make and decide how rich you want it)
- juice of 1/2 lemon (about 1 tablespoon)
- 1/8 cup nutritional yeast
- 1 cup sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, thinly sliced
- 2 garlic cloves
- 2 tablespoons capers (or kalamata olives!)
- splash of red wine vinegar
Instructions
- Using a mandolin or potato peeler, make long thin strips starting on one side and rotating sides of the zucchini until you get a few layers into the seeded area. At this point it will be hard to get any more slices. Use what is left in a smoothie, crackers, or dip in the extra pesto.
- Stack up your noodles and cut in half OR cut in half after you've layered everything.
- Spread out on a paper towel and sprinkle with the teeniest bit of salt and leave to release water while you make the pesto and tapenade.
- Start by placing the walnuts, garlic, and salt into a food processor fitted with the s-blade. Process until the walnuts/garlic are in small pieces. Add in arugula, olive oil, lemon juice, and nutritional yeast and process until all arugula is ground down and everything is mixed well.
- Place tomatoes, garlic, capers, and red wine vinegar in a small personal blender cup and blend until tomato and garlic are broken down.
- Start by placing 3-4 slices of zucchini on a plate for '1 square' of lasagna (you could make both squares at this time), do a layer of pesto, more slices of zucchini, a layer of tapenade and repeat the process until you've used up your zucchini.
Also! It passed the fork test. What is the fork test you ask? I just made it up. It’s the test where you use the fork to ‘cut’ your next bite. I did that and it did not smoosh all over the place. See.
I’m not sure what that blue is in the image…I just noticed that. This wasn’t altered in any way…so weird!
I love when raw desserts and meals hold up in a similar fashion to the foods we grew up with.
How would you make this? What fillings or ingredients sound good to you?
xoxo